Three players benefit most from Novak Djokovic pulling out of the ATP Finals

Novak Djokovic's season is done. He has announced he will not play in the year-end ATP Finals that will be held next week. He had previously said the tournament was no longer a priority of his, and that is now confirmed.

There was an extremely unlikely chance that Djokovic was not going to qualify for the Finals even though he sat at No. 6 in points for the Race to Turin. He could have possibly been overtaken by two player that are still participating in events. Now that Djokovic is ending his season, those players will certainly be in Turin.

The players benefitting most from the Serb's lack of participation at the ATP Finals are Alex de Minaur and Andrey Rublev. Casper Ruud could have been passed by de Minaur and Rublev as well, but Djokovic withdrawing from the Finals has no real impact on Ruud. The Norwegian sat at No. 7 in points for the Finals.

Three players benefit from Novak Djokovic skipping the ATP Finals

Rublev is no stranger to the year-end event. This will be his fifth time playing. De Minaur, who is having his best season on the ATP tour, will be playing the Finals for the first time. Neither player is expected to win the vent, however. Even Djokovic, who holds the record for most ATP Finals titles (7), would not have been a favorite this year.

The favorites will be Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Even though Alexander Zverev is currently ranked second, if all players are in peak form, Sinner and Alcaraz are the best. That will likely be the way for much of the next decade. Zverev is a good player, but Sinner and Alcaraz are great. That said, Zverev has won the ATP Finals twice, so he at least knows what it takes to win the event.

The eight players participating in Turin include Sinner, Zverev, Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Taylor Fritz, Ruud, de Minaur, and Rublev. Only Zverev has won the tournament. Medvedev has been a runner-up once. Ruud was the runner-up in 2022, while Sinner was the runner-up in 2023.

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